iVerify purchases new video monitoring center

CHARLOTTE, N.C.--IVerify, an interactive video and audio monitoring company, on March 20 purchased a 40,000-square-foot building located here, which will house the company's dedicated video monitoring center as well as its corporate offices. The $4.5 million purchase has been in the works for about a year and will be followed by a $1.5-to-$2 million additional investment for technology additions and interior construction, said Mike May, president and chief financial officer of iVerify. "Our center has to be able to know that the IP addresses that are related to certain locations are going to be appropriately routed to the people that have the appropriate skills and training," May said. "There is a central core data center in place that will be expanded significantly and we're in the process of receiving proposals from companies specializing in moving video, audio and data through a highly intelligent switch and delivering the information to the right seat, right person, right time," he said. The video monitoring center, which specializes in providing video services to national retailers, financial institutions and public utility companies, has operators dedicated to specific accounts or group of accounts. "We're creating a concept of client teams or grouped business unit teams so clients will have their own teams of people dedicated to handling their locations," May said. "We also create groups, so, for example, the banking industry has its own group because no one banking customer is large enough to justify a dedicated team, but the banking group will have its own group of monitoring specialists." May expects the center to be temporarily moved into by May 1 and completely transitioned by August. The new building is located on a 15-acre campus in Charlotte and is a "highly secure, fenced property with limited access," he said. In addition to the video monitoring center, the new building has an interactive store and bank, which will "create a holistic customer experience allowing them to see the retail and monitoring perspective in one site visit," he said. The center also has 5,000-square-foot presentation space for educational and seminar purposes. This purchase followed a $21 million capital round and $8.5 million acquisition of Magal Security Systems in December 2007 (for details, search "iVerify secures capital, acquires" at www.securitysystemsnews.com.